When one is going through a breakup, especially if you are the one being dumped, there is no better place to work through your grief than social media. Heart wrenching posts about being sad and alone and talking about how devastated you are doesn’t work with close friends over a bottle of wine and a tub of ice cream. That’s the old fashioned way. The only way for grieving to work in a modern age is to be gently reassured with vague promises of being there if you need them, by acquaintances you only know through the internet, who call you “babe” with a sad face emoticon.

As with all feelings and experiences, if it’s not on social media, then it didn’t happen. I personally suggest instagramming a photo of a love heart drawn in the sand as a wave washes it away. It’s SO representative of the way that bastard washed away your feelings as he dumped you. If you don’t thank all your dearest friends by tagging them in an appropriately melodramatic post on facebook, how on earth will they know just how grateful you really are for their cliched words of comfort? That’s right, they won’t.

On the flip side, if you are the dump-er in the breakup, your friends won’t fully experience the awkwardness of the breakup unless they get to read all of the on-the-hour updates about the stages of grief from the recently dumped now-ex-boyfriend. How much would they miss out on? Too much. That’s how much. It’s a new social-media game. How many awkward posts, tags, photos and love song quotes will they have to endure until another talk has been had between dumper and dumpee before they can quietly unfriend the recently devastated?

So, in truly modern fashion, remember, it’s not over until it’s all been displayed in gory, awkward detail on social media and if you never updated your relationship status, it never happened.

Note: This is not about me or any relationship I’ve had. Just to clarify.

Liam

Brenton: I agree – it amazes me how forthcoming some people are on social media sites. I don’t see the breakup side of things among my friends so much as I see the courtship stuff, and even that is too much. How many times can you post “OMG, I am in love!” every two or three months (as one of my friends does) before all your friends start thinking “What? Again?” It’s not quite the same as your post, but it shows an ever increasing lack of discretion among the public.

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